Tag: dance

Scottish Day of Dance

DSC_0328Morag Simpson and Morag Young, PE Lead Officers from Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team, along with Catherine Halcrow (PE Specialist), organised the Annual Day of Scottish Dance at Falkirk Town Hall on Friday 20th March 2015.

The event was a huge success with around 300 pupils attending. Once again the Jack Delaney band provided live music to accompany the dancers. The programme included a variety of dances with varying degrees of difficulty allowing schools to participate in as few or as many dances as they chose.

The day provides a great opportunity for schools to join in a fun celebration of Scottish dance, deepening their understanding of Scottish Culture at the same time. Pupils also gain the experience of mixing with other pupils from across Falkirk.

Thistle Wing Wheelchair Dancers again performed at the interval as did Larbert High S2 School of Dance Pupils. Both of these performances were very well received.

Our Provost Pat Reid showed his support again by attending the event and talking to many pupils and staff.

Both PE Lead Officers would like to say a big thank you to all the staff and pupils who worked hard at preparing the dances to make this day a big success. A great time was had by all.

Reminder: If you are interested in attending the Day of Dance in 2016 – There is an online resource available to assist you with the preparation of the dances.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJBh6ZaUFm-Fs9vS-uKUrfu4z5veg3s56

Avonbridge Dancers

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, PE Lead Officers for Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team arranged a visit to Avonbridge Primary School to work with their Scottish Country Dance group. The purpose of this visit was to showcase good practice in Scottish Country Dance and create a  resource for class teachers. The  resource will help with the delivery of this activity context through curricular PE or as an extra-curricular club in preparation for the annual Day of Dance . We would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to the pupils and staff of Avonbridge for their warm welcome and willingness to assist us with this project.  Particular thanks to Mrs Rankine for all her input with the dancers.

Braes Cluster Day of Dance

Morag Simpson and  Morag Young, PE Lead Officers and Marian Boyle, Support Officer for Health and Wellbeing,  all within Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised and delivered a Day of  Sottish Dance for the Braes Cluster. Avonbridge Primary kindly agreed to host the event with Wallacestone Primary and Sheildhill Primary also attending. The day was a great success with lots of fun had by all and some fantastic dancing on display. The pupils from all schools worked well together, helping each other through the dances.

A huge thank you to Avonbridge for hosting and to all participants for performing so well on the day.

Physical Education – Dance

Morag Young and Morag Simpson, Physical Education Lead Officers from Falkirk Council Curriculum Support Team organised a Dance twilight for primary class teachers and specialists. This course was led by Anne Murphy,  from Education Scotland. Anne demonstrated how to provide a progressive Dance programme covering the Physical Education Experience and Outcomes, focussing on the Significant Aspects of Learning in PE from Early Level through to Second Level.  She also showed how to incorporate numeracy skills, literacy skills and topic work.  This was a practical course and participants enjoyed the way in which the course was delivered in an extremely inclusive and creative manner. Course participants were able to identify that this method of teaching Dance  would ensure a positive learning experience for all and highlighted that you didn’t need to be a dancer to teach Dance!!

Examples of the very positive feedback are shown below.

“Fantastic ideas for creative dance which I could see working with my class, they would be  motivated and would get a lot of enjoyment from it”

“ How to allow pupils to take ownership and problem solve”

“I did two dance twilights last year and both were difficult to implement. This one was fab! 

“Plan to use these ideas in term 3 and link to literacy”